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Jason Gray just posted a really nice review of The Good Things in the rabbit room. http://www.rabbitroom.com/?p=1259 If you haven't checked out Andrew Peterson's online forum now is the time. Not only have they posted this nice review, different writers discuss a wide variety of topics concerning faith and culture. Feel free to comment here or there and give us your feedback on the new record. Unless you hate EVERYTHING about it and then you can just keep the feedback to yourself:)

So I wrote a really long blog yesterday about what we did over Christmas here in Nashville. I called it "Christmas Mischief". When I was gone on tour this month I would e-mail Drew's teacher and check in on how he was doing. One day she said, "He is great but he is full of Christmas mischief". That is what my kids have been full of all Christmas break and even now as they have another week home to bounce off the walls and run circles around the house.

So I am finally back in Nashville after being on the road most of December. We are in transition mode right now, which means the kids are being extra needy and fussy and we are extra tired. It is very quiet around our neighborhood as most people have gone somewhere else for the holidays. There is something wonderful about how everything stops this time of year. Shopping is mostly done, parties have been given, and now people are settling in for Christmas. We take the kids to Opryland hotel every year to see the lights and I think we might venture that way tonight.

Oh, and here is the PE picture some of you asked for. I took the picture as I was NOT playing basketball that day. There is a matching sweatshirt and we all have nicknames on the back. Pretty funny. They are trying unsuccessfully to look tough.

When you are on a tour that is this long inevitably you end up taking fake band pictures. After a great show in Largo, Florida the other night the bus was parked in front of Largo Central Park which was full of Christmas lights and cheer:) So we all walked through the park and ended up taking fake band pictures, one of which you see above. If you want to see more you can find them on my facebook page.

So I am heading back to beautiful Nashville for a brief time home before we head out on the second leg of the tour. I am on the bus with all the guys watching Edward Scissorhands. Somehow Andy and I realized we have never seen this movie in its entirety... how is that possible? It is fantastic.

We are here in beautiful snowy Michigan City, IN on the second day of the Christmas tour. Yesterday we were with the great people in Elkhorn, Nebraska and had a wonderful time. Cindy made her famous chicken noodle soup and the show went relatively smoothly for the first one of the tour. This year Andy and Cason decided it would be a great idea to have a tour PE class and Andy ordered uniforms for all of us. He went to the sporting goods store and got cones, kickballs, and all the old school gear.

I really love to cook. I don't know when this happened exactly but it was sometime after Andy and I got married. I started getting cookbooks, watching the Food Network and collecting recipes from people whose food I enjoyed. One of the things we love to do when traveling to a new city is find the best local restaurants. So maybe I will start asking for recommendations of restaurants before shows and provide some reviews here.

Last winter I was at a David Wilcox show in Asheville, NC waiting nervously as my husband was about to share the stage with one of our musical heroes. David graciously brought up several other friends to play as well and one of them was the amazing Danny Ellis. Danny is originally from Ireland and he sang the most incredible song called "Tommy Bonner" that captured me instantly. I didn't know the full story at the time, but I knew the song was about a boy named Tommy that used to sing the Kyrie during mass at the orphanage where he grew up.

Somehow the most unlikely thing has happened... I have become a runner. I used to look at these people with disdain, probably because they had the discipline I lacked and seemed to be so PROUD of themselves. There I am driving and there they are running like big show-offs. If I had intended this to happen it never would have. If I had planned and calculated and bought new shoes it would have overwhelmed me. But about three months ago I was having a particularly difficult morning and the urge to just run came over me.